The Swot has Two Sides
by Omniskriba
Summary: A series of short vignettes detailing the kind of illicit nonsense you wouldn't have expected from such an uptight, pompous git.


Without warning, Teddy Lupin's messy crop of dark blue hair lit up, turning bright orange in the lamplight. Suddenly, it all made sense.

[THE SWOT HAS TWO SIDES]  
[ Bastard Son]  
[Based on the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling]

It had been a very curious afternoon at the Department of Names and Registries. Madame Numina had always been one for a scandal and that was certainly of no great shortage at her department but it wasn't everyday that relatives of Harry Potter's were involved. Rita Skeeter and the he Daily Prophet would have to be informed of course - the news was very much "public interest".

The shadows of those present stood frozen over the vast walls of the department, cast clearly over the impossibly ornate print of the wallpaper. It was really not so much a print as it was a diagram - a colossal family tree that branched out and branched in, connecting husbands to their wives, parents to their children and ancestors to their descendants. This was the Tree of the Hall of Heritage, a masterpiece of magical art that tracks all the marriages and births within Britain's wizarding families. Upon closer inspection, the thread-thin branches were crawling with tiny names and blossoming with tiny pictures. Everyone was accounted for.

Some branches grew gnarled and frail from isolation and inbreeding; the finest example being that of the Gaunts. Some, on the other hand, grew robust from wide roots. Such were the branches of the Weasley family which painted a vast corner of the wall with an unmistakable red hue. This red hue was why it was so easy for short, plump Madame Numina to find what her guests came to the department for.

They had come to prepare for another Weasley wedding. This time, it was Bill Weasley's eldest daughter Victoire that was going to get married next; the lucky sumbitch being Andromeda Tonk's boy Teddy Lupin. She had joked about it to Bill and Fleur who had escorted the couple that afternoon. Bill was quick to justify that Teddy wasn't a Weasley so it technically wasn't a Weasley wedding. They then had a good laugh.

Upon making that afternoon discovery with the scandal and the branches and the red-headed Teddy, Bill couldn't help but taste the calluses of his foot rubbing roughly along the roof of his mouth.

It all started with Madame Numina, who was looking at the Weasley branches with a large brass magnifying glass that magically enlarged the image on the wall for everyone else to see. She checked it closely, plotting the path of the new branch that will link the couple together. It took her a while to realize that something was wrong. She pursed her lips at this. Then bit her mouth. Then, she grunted before resuming to purse her lips. It was a little over five minutes when Fleur made her first annoyed coughing sound. It took three to force Madame Numina to confront what she discovered.

"I am certain you know that first cousins are not allowed to marry under our laws."

Bill furrowed his brow, trying vainly to take her in jest. "Yes, yes of course. You must be mistaken, though. Teddy isn't our nephew. Not by blood, anyway. He's just a really close family friend. Heck, he's related closer to Harry, being his godson and all."

"Yes." Fleur agreed. "You must be mistaking 'ees clockwork apparitions during meal times for blood relation. I think so too, sometimes."

"No, no." said Madame Numina impatiently as Teddy and Victoire stare at her speechlessly. "These branches do not lie. If you trace his mother's lineage, you see how it leads to Nymphadora Tonks which leads to Andromeda and Ted Tonks. But on her father's side..."

Madame Numina's short, plump fingers glid across the wallpaper ominously and with deliberate melodrama. It landed nowhere near a Lupin name. Indeed, it landed somewhere very close to home. Since tonight was supposed to be Teddy and Victoire's engagement party, the Right Honorable Bastard was probably at home right now.

"That can't be right!" Bill muttered with a good number of expletives thrown in for good measure.

"The Wall does not make mistakes." said Madame Numina, tapping the picture of the smug looking prat with red hair and glasses. "I'm sorry but until you can prove to me that the boy is NOT the son of Percival Ignatius Weasley, I cannot validate their marriage contract."

Bill, Fleur and Victoire stared at Teddy. Impossible, they thought. Teddy couldn't be any less like Percy if Teddy had a quidditch broomstick up his buttocks. Sure, Teddy had been on and off glasses since his teens (he found it okay to bump into things from time to time as fashion dictates) but that was where the similarities ended didn't it?

Teddy was tall, handsome, athletic, clever and quite aggressive when he's feeling peckish. He loved playing quidditch, training under Puddlemere United captain Oliver Wood a number of summers and it gave him an incredibly attractive physique. He was an excellent student who managed to get good grades despite spending most of his "study periods" snogging the lovely Victoire between library shelves at the Muggle Studies section. He's known for being "cocky" - a fact attested by the guys in the Ravenclaw quidditch team as being literally true. To top it off, he actually HAD a sense of humor.

It was easy to compare this image to that of pompous Percy Weasley - a man who was the perfect caricature of every mousy bureaucrat with delusions of greatness. The image of Percy seemed to shrink even more when occupying the same mental space as Teddy with his broad shoulders, long muscular frame and strong features. If Percy had been there, he'd probably be flailing wildly in comedic indignation at the atrocious level of service in the Department of Names and Registries.

When Teddy slipped on his prescription lenses and changed his hair color from blue to orange however, there was a staggering silence in the room.

Teddy did not change a single feature in his face. It was stronger than Percy's, no doubt, but not by much. Loosening his robes a bit, his muscular frame slackened to a point where it could have been any build. His height, within an inch of Percy's, suggested he might be thin underneath those robes. Teddy's blue-gray eyes landed on Victoire's with an intense tiredness. Victoire's face trembled at the thought of so many a passionate rendevous. She felt sick.

"Until you can prove to me that the boy is NOT the son of Percival Ignatius Weasley" Madame Numina repeated slowly and with a hint of relish over the saucy scandal "they cannot be wed."

Victoire couldn't decide whether to hug her fiancee for comfort or to pass-out from all the wonderful memories of apparent incest. Bill scoured the wall nervously, looking for some error. Teddy just stood there; looking the way he had always felt was most natural to him. Without his metamorphmagus hair, without any weird facial contortions, he stood there looking every bit like his father, frozen by the implications of this discovery.

Fleur, on the other hand, bit her lip behind her husband and cursed under a mint-accented breath. "Percy Weasley, Percy Weasley, you cocky whooring foock."

Probably up next: [Office Affair]  
In which a flashback will recount the short-lived romance between Percy and Tonks.

and

[Best Friend] In which farther flash back recounts Percy's complicated relationship with Oliver Wood.

and

[First [known] Girlfriend]

In which a different flashback digs up the story behind Penelope Clearwater and those years at Hogwarts.

Yes, this will be a continuous story. Further implications will be explored next time.


End file.
